Sunday, August 17, 2008

Last week, Lacefreak Jane gave us an informative tutorial on washing Cormo fleece. This week, I follow her laundering lead by providing directions for washing tigers.

But before we get to this event, I shall recap our stay in Bangkok, because many of you wanted to know how I was faring. The short story is that I am doing fine, thanks to a battery of highly skilled medical professionals.

I pass quickly over the first week here, as I spent it in a (very nice) hospital room equipped with a brigade of nurses, minibar, plasma TV, and pull-out bed for Roy, all for the munificent cost of about $175 a day. The most exciting event of the week was the discovery that, when drugged into a pethidine stupor, I spoke perfectly fluent, idiomatic Japanese for about fifteen minutes. I have no recollection of doing this, but the doctors pulled Roy into the operating room to see if he could figure out what I was saying.

Unfortunately, Roy’s Japanese consists mostly of essential phrases such as “Please give me a beer,” so he wasn’t much help in that quarter. I suspect that I was probably saying something like “I am not a pincushion and if you do anything else to me with sharp objects, my friend Harry The Giant Spider will get truly annoyed and you will all be really sorry.”

I was finally sprung from hospital, whereupon we returned to the hotel and signed up for a tour of The Tiger Monastery—an amazing sanctuary for Really Big Striped Felines. The usual tour consists of a walk around the compound, followed by a distant viewing of tigers frolicking in a pool of water. However, somehow we were selected for an unusual hands-on tiger experience. The two of us must have looked so shell-shocked from the hospital stay that the tour guides figured the concept of tiger-washing would probably not faze us in the least.

The monastery is located in the north of Thailand—several hours by car. When we arrived, we had to sign a fair number of disclaimers, one of which was a release in case we were eaten during the tour. We were then led to a temple area where we suddenly found three-week old baby tigers in our laps. I am sorry, but there are simply no words to describe this experience. Instead, you will have to use your imagination from the pictures below.

After 45 incredible minutes tiger-cub handling, we were led over to a group of three-month old tigers, and we proceeded to walk our very own feline down to the swimming hole. Tigers of that age consist of 150 pounds of solid muscle. We started off on an equal footing...

...but in a few seconds, the tiger was actually walking me.

Between the two of us, though, we managed quite well.

When the group released the tigers into the water, the handlers instructed the ten of us to stand in a line on the shore. They then explained that should the tigers try to break through the line, we were to stand tall and steady as a tree, grab the tiger by the head and shoulders, and turn it around. This obscure factoid may come in handy for some of you one day.

At one point, a couple of the cats decided to charge the line. I did an Oscar-winning sapling imitation while Roy whipped the tiger around and pushed him back into the water. Roy still has both hands and I didn’t have a coronary.

The tigers walked us back to their enclosure, and at that point, we were given a lecture on How To Wash A Tiger.

Listen up, folks, because you never know when you might need this bit of information. Beginning at the tail, you hose down the animal with one hand while brushing dirt off the fur with the other hand.Clearly, it’s easier to wash Cormo fleece, mainly because it lacks teeth and claws. Also, it is difficult to spin tiger fur, especially if it’s still attached to the animal.

Here's a close-up of the tail-washing process.

Then proceed up the body and finish with a through face-washing.

We repeated the walking/swim experience with year-old tigers, which are rather larger than the three-month-old cats and have Really Big Teeth.

I indulged in a bit of meaningless conversation with our companion—you know—Nice Kitty! Great Teeth! Humans Taste Terrible!

And finally, we got to play with the cubs for a little while longer.

The experience was surreal and indescribable.

On the way back to Bangkok, we asked the driver to stop for lunch somewhere. As we sat there eating river prawns, we suddenly realized where we were. Folks of a certain age may recognize this tragic place. The photo below cannot convey the encompassing agony that surrounds this broken pile of wood.

We visited the tiny, poignant museum and read the terrible history of the RiverKwaiBridge. Readers who want to learn the true story, which has little to do with the famous movie, can visit this web site.

Tomorrow we are off to Japan for a week to visit friends, have completely different Hello Kitty encounters, and do a little yarn crawling. This is supposed to be a knitting blog, after all!

Wow, what a way to celebrate your release from hospital. The pictures and the story are wonderful and it's good to see you look so well.Was that happiness by feline proximity or the lingering effects of powerful Thai drugs? ;)

You don't do things by halves, do you! :-) I'm glad to see you had such an amazing and incredible experience following your hospital ordeal and I'm really looking forward to hearing all about your yarn crawl.

So happy to hear that you are out of the hospital and feeling better! If anyone was ment to hold a tiger by the tail it's you :-) I will say that the washing of Cormo is a much more passive event and not nearly so wonderful as your washing and caressing of tigers. What a wonderful experience for you both. Enjoy the rest of your trip and keep us posted!

I've been catching up, so first I am sorry to hear that you have not been well and pleased to hear that you are now on the mend.

Wow, what an incredible experience. A wild tiger and her 3 cubs walked within 10 feet of our vehicle in India last year. Looking her in the eye was awesome, so I can imagine cuddling those kitties was simply breath taking. Apparently stroking animals is very theraputic. I hope it does you the world of good.CA

Wow! First camels and now tigers. I am so insanely jealous! It's one of my life dreams to play with a tiger. I'm glad to hear everything went well enough that they let you go play with wild animals that have big teeth. I was worried after not hearing from you for so long!

Wow, what an incredible post. I hope you're feeling better now and that you don't have to revisit the hospital any time soon--been away from blogland a long time so not sure what had ailed you, but I hope it's routed!

Gosh, too bad you didn't have any little hats or similar ready for the tigers to model. That would have made quite a photograph.

Oh, no, I'm not in your league!!I'm just a fledgeling blog person,and am still at the tentative 'people I know might read this - eek' stage! However, give me a year or so...... Poor Hanabi, and Lester on holiday had me clutching my sides! :D

What a superhuman being the fleegle is! Fresh out of surgery and she's playing with tigers the next day.

I know exactly how you must have felt when you accidentally stumbled upon the Kway bridge - the realisation and then the emotion - Oh my god this is it! moment. I actually 'stumbled' upon the Grand Canyon in a similar way (bad map reading - among other things) when I was doing my grand USA road trip in my early twenties. (I'm from Australia).

But the best thing about this post is that I got to see the fleegle in the flesh, so to speak.

The second best thing was your commenter 'India is on my list of places to visit'. India. Thailand - same same. Heh.

oh my, not only do you make saartje's booties a seamless experience, but then I find posts and pics of tigers in thailand: I swore I couldn't possibly read any more blogs but I've added yours for sheer entertainment and education value. thanks from a new fan. PS you look blissed out holding that cub.

I got in an animal-handling session at the zoo once, but we didn't go up to tigers, how wonderful. I've always had a thing about tigers (see http://chronicknittingsyndrome.blogspot.com/2008/01/monday-monday.html ) so if I had a To Do list, this would definitely go on it.

Hope your health continues to improve and that the Orient can provide the help you need.